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This article discusses regional planning in the United States and the negative attitude of citizens regarding the practice. Vermont combines New England's strongest banking climate and strictest regional land-use planning. It is the only New England state that has not suffered a savings-and-loan collapse, and it has the region's most demanding statewide environmental regulations. Vermont's experience marks a fascinating turn in America's generations-long ambivalence toward regional land-use planning. Let us define regional planning as the regulation of land development projects that is conducted by governments above the municipal and county levels. Regional planning has traditionally foundered on the plain fact that many Americans truly loathe modem, centralized, regulatory government. In no area is the contradiction as apparent as in regional land-use planning. Regional planning in the United States has provably increased each year for at least the last two decades and it is likely to expand in coming years. This activity has been genuinely embraced at federal and state levels. And yet, it is hated anyway. The time has come to rework this complex tangle of attitudes and bring them more in line with reality, in the Vermont manner.

Examines the U.S. approach to urban and regional planning. Planning projects handled by the Joint Center for Urban Studies; Impact of the emergence of crisis of confidence on planning; Factors that will form the basis of planning.